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Comment by jgowdy | Hacker News Reader

I want to know how much the Romans stole from Germania. If we're going to track down every historical wrong (as long as it's a European/British/American historical wrong), and see it made right, we need to know how much the Romans stole and what it's worth in current money. Then I expect Italy to make reparations to Germany.

I'm not unsympathetic or unaware of what India went through when it was occupied. Obviously imperialism is wholly unacceptable. But we seem to be revisiting historical wrongs with a particular selectiveness.

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Didnt Germanic tribes eventually overpower and become the defacto rulers of the old Roman empire, taking over the existing hierarchies and heralding in the Roman Catholic Church as they did so?

In the case of India, the British/European influence still holds.

Let us look at some effects of British rule that still lingers

1. The British transferred power to British educated loyalists/elites esp. Nehru, whose family dynasty continues to be dominate politics.

2. Did you know that the word "Caste" can not be found in any Indian languages, because it originates from Europe and was introduced into India by the British and fortified by the Church. The amount of propaganda and weaponisation is so strong that this has be internalised by the society.

3. The culture of British institutions and politics continue to be patronising towards India. So much so that they continue to interfere in the Internal matters of India.

None of this has to do with money but treating a civilisation on equal terms.

Britain can reverse at least a part of the damage by being honest.

'Soft Power Reparations' [Lecture at British Parliament] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDvNGAQhSYs

'Did British Create The Indian Caste System?' [Breaking India at Warwick] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrTUp2mKbWs

To quote the article:

> Reparations? Perhaps – although there is not enough money in all of Britain to cover the sums that Patnaik identifies. In the meantime, we can start by setting the story straight.

In your world, do you see a place for this sort of historical investigation of the consequences of past actions, to learn from history?

It depends on if the purpose of bringing these stories to light is wielded as a weapon or as a text book.

Would you rather the history be kept secret than be "wielded as a weapon"?

You do realise those aren't the only two options? What loceng is talking about is sins of the father being transferred to the children.

Yes, but when asked, "do you see a place for this sort of historical investigation of the consequences of past actions?" they said that the answer depends on whether it is "wielded as a weapon", which seems to imply that the answer in that case would be "no" - that if given a choice between only the options of being kept secret or being wielded as a weapon, they would prefer it be kept secret.

You're somehow leaving out the option that I mentioned of "use as a text book." My answer was to highlight the concern that intent/purpose and motives are important, e.g if someone going to use the reminder of history as a weapon to rally anger and hate, or to guide rational, reasonable discussion?

Yes, I understand that that's your preferred option. But your answer seems to imply that if people were going to use history as a weapon, then it would be better for it to not be known at all. That is, your order of preferences is Text Book > Secret > Used as Weapon.

If the purpose for 'historical investigation of the consequences of past actions' is to rally anger and hate in the present, then no, I would prefer it kept 'secret'. Mainly because I would have no faith that the investigation would be objective or have any redeeming qualities.

Even true facts can be used for bad purposes, and even uncomfortable facts are worth knowing. This philosophy is what leads to things like denying the Armenian genocide, or denying the rape of Nanking.

Are those atrocities being used to demonize the descendants of the perpretrators? Not that I can see. Therefore, I take no issue with bringing them to light.

It seems you'd be okay with using true facts to incite racial or religious hatred, something which is against the law in most western countries.

> If the purpose for 'historical investigation of the consequences of past actions' is to rally anger and hate in the present

That's exactly what many 'investigations', which are not always historically accurate, are about: Stroking nationalism, hate, and a sense of revenge on the one side (and we can see good examples of that in the comments here), and shame on the other side.

The UK and Europe have nothing to be ashamed of (which isn't to say that past actions cannot be criticised). Stroking hate and revenge is taking a path of perpetuation of aggression.

Certainly, this article is crass propaganda and not journalism. I flagged the submission to no effect.

Certainly, I'm pretty sure in my comment, I emphasized that it's the very selective seeking of historical justice, most commonly targeting Europe, England, and the United States which impeaches the credibility of the whole exercise as not just about righting and learning from historical wrongs, but instead advancing an agenda.

Of course if we were working to right or at least learn about all historical wrongs without being selective about it, then I would argue that attempting to undo the horrors of human history is quixotic and a fool's errand.

Maybe because these attrocities were committed by people in recent history and the technology and record keeping have made it possible to quantify the destruction and pillaging. And that the west is open to being held accountable.

Maybe, maybe not. Why is there never any mention of the horrors of the Arab Slave Trade in these discussions? And why does no one mention that it was the British who spearheaded the global abolition of slavery?

If you want to start a discussion about the Arab Slave Trade and reparations for it, feel free. But in the meantime, please don't derail discussions about one atrocity with a meta-discussion about every atrocity and how those atrocities rank amongst each other.

Why are you so anxious to shut down a broader discussion about the reality of human nature and slavery? Perhaps there is a painful reality of the human condition which you do not want to confront?

It seems like you're concerned that we're impartially holding British accountable but not others, while ignoring all the good things that the British did? I think a party can do good and bad things, and while there might not be anyone appreciating good things, it doesn't make the bad things they did any less bad.

There is a very popular conception of slavery that is extremely ignorant of history and present reality which essentially implies slavery is something that white people invented to oppress darker skinned people. This popular myth also fails to acknowledge that there are more people living in slavery now than ever before in history.

I'm simply trying to dispel this naive, dangerously ignorant, ironically racist notion of slavery, so that people can hopefully have a greater understanding of human nature as a whole, and focus on fighting for people who are living in slavery right now, rather than just focusing on the legacy of slavery of 1 or 2 predominantly white nations from hundreds of years ago.

Go ahead, bring in the Arab slave trade, im pretty disgusted by that aswell, but the topic is the british.

And how kind of the British, like any major power with an advancing economy, seem to start focusing on human right just about the time slavery is offering more of an advantage to their adversaries. (But I'm not going to complain about that progress).

The topic is always British, European, or American. That's why it's valid to bring up other similar historical wrongs in this discussion without dismissing it as whataboutism. The "strange" focus on only the historical wrongs of a few particular groups of people impeaches the discussion of this sort of topic due to the obvious implicit bias that selects which groups should be held accountable.

The British, European, and American atrocities were the only ones you consider "recent"? We only hold those to account who are open to being held accountable? Or only those who keep good records?

Sorry, but that's not a very convincing argument to excuse the extremely selective outrage and demands for reparations and accountability. Personally, I think the biases that drive this selective outrage are rather obvious. But draw your own conclusions.

Many countries refuse to even acknowledge and say sorry for the shit they did as recently as recently as 50-100 years ago. Countries like Japan don't want their young to learn about the atrocities they committed (unit 731, rape of nanking etc).

The Roman Empire does not exist anymore. The British Crown does. Stripping the British Crown of its property and returning it all to India would go only a little way to repaying the debt, but it would be a gesture directly from the beneficiaries of the plunder to the robbed.

I'm sorry, are you referring to the Kingdom of Great Britain, a country that doesn't exist anymore, or the United Kingdom, a wholly different structure of government and effectively a different nation?

I am talking, as I wrote in actual words which you may read all by yourself immediately above, of the assets of the British Crown: what its principals, I gather, refer to as "the Firm". Those are wholly distinct from the United Kingdom, and from Great Britain, and from whatever else you imagine that is not what I wrote or you read.

What other families have benefitted from colonialism and slavery? Is this family the worst example or simply the highest profile? It seems like there are a great number of people and even entire families living lives of luxury due in large part to historical wrongs. Would you like to pursue the quixotic quest of righting all of these wrongs through property seizure from their descendants, or are you simply concerned with the highest profile such family to make a point?

And if you believe the British Crown isn't a political entity that is part and parcel with the government of the United Kingdom but instead just a culpable family that needs to be stripped of their ill gotten assets, then perhaps the Commonwealth doesn't exist at all.

It's worth noting that "India" did not exist at the time, which made it possible for the British to take over by using these divisions. Perhaps the very existence of India is the most important legacy of the British in the region.

The weak and divided will always be taken advantage of. That's a historical constant. From the Renaissance onward Europe (yes, it was heavily divided but somehow that seemed to have fostered competition and progress) was unstoppable and miles ahead of everyone else. I think that's key and it's really interesting to study the causes of that. What we've seen starting in the second half of the 19th century is the world trying to catch up.

Energies are better used to build a prosperous and well-governed country rather than dwelling on who took what from whom in the past (everyone took whatever they could from everyone else).

Not a fan of revisionist theories and unsubstantiated fan fictions, but your idea of India being a British creation is utterly misinformed, India is a very old political entity and had been United under multiple nations states & empires throughout its recorded history.

> Not a fan of revisionist theories and unsubstantiated fan fictions

I can understand that Indians feel a degree of humiliation at having been colonised by a comparatively rather small island nation, but bitterness an burying one's head in the sand is not going to change history. Trying to shutdown discussion by basically insulting others won't, either.

If what is now India had been a single, unified political entity it would have been much more difficult, if not impossible, for the British to take over the way they did. We can look at China as an example of that: While it was in a state of 'decay' that allowed a level of colonisation and land grab it was still an single, unified country that was able to resist complete takeover.

Note that I'm not making any judgment or attempt at justifying anything. I am just pointing out that what happened is what happened everywhere throughout history. The particularity of the period is perhaps what I mentioned in my previous comment: Europe's advance that allowed it to essentially subjugate the world. It is much more useful to learn from the past (and to learn from others) than to stay in the past.

> Energies are better used to build a prosperous and well-governed country rather than dwelling on who took what from whom in the past (everyone took whatever they could from everyone else).

Fair enough, but in today's age of liberal democracies, we can maybe take lessons from the past and use that to inform decisions that our countries take in the future. Perhaps a population better educated on the atrocities of colonialism may be less willing to support unjustified wars and exploitative projects in the future.

Yes, in today's age of liberal democracies, we can take lessons from the past, like the value of free speech, innocent until proven guilty, not being deprived freedom without due process of law / habeas corpus, abolishment of debtors prisons, private property / not being deprived of property without due process of law, etc.

It seems like we have a lot of infringements of basic and fundamental rights in which we are forgetting history and how we got here. However, I haven't seen a significant effort to revive colonialism. So perhaps this isn't the highest priority example of where we need to learn from history at the moment?

Even America's expeditionary wars don't have the intention of changing the lines on maps. The only nation that has done that recently that I'm aware of is Russia. Trying to fly today's wars and examples of exploitation of peoples under the flag of colonialism seems rather forced to me. Why not just say "bad stuff" and tie that to colonialism?

> It's worth noting that "India" did not exist at the time, which made it possible for the British to take over by using these divisions.

Citation needed. What exactly did not exist? What do you mean by "India" here?

The people, the culture, languages etc have all existed for many many years before the British even thought of setting foot in India.

As for the land that we call India today:

Babur (the Founder of Mughal Empire in the 1500s) described "Hindustan" as follows:

    “The country of Hindustan is extensive, full of men and full of produce. On the east, south and even on the west, it ends at its great enclosing ocean (muhit-daryasigah). On the north it has mountains which connect with those of Hindukush, Kafiristan and Kashmir. North-west of it lie Kabul, Ghazni and Qandahar. Delhi is held to be the capital of the whole of Hindustan.”

In case you don't know, Hindustan is the Persian name of India at the time. And in the above quote he is describing Himalayas, and the seas that surround India in East, West and South. Thats pretty much the entire modern day India + Pakistan described by a Persian guy in 1500s. The british landed in India a good 100 years after that

As for being "weak and divided", I believe you are implying that India was ruled by many kingdoms and thus wasn't a unified entity. At the time the British landed, Mughal Empire was the prominent power and controlled almost all of modern day India. Before the Mughal Empire, there were other Empires that controlled almost all of Modern day India + Pakistan. One such empire is the Maurya Empire which reigned from 322 - 185 BC.

Also the British company that came to India was literally named after India and was the East *India* company that was founded in 1600s. Not to mention naming other places after India when they were no where near India like the West Indies or like referring to North American Natives as "Indians"

So please elaborate on what exactly did not exist?

> Perhaps the very existence of India is the most important legacy of the British in the region.

I see this article as an attempt to correct such blatant revisionisms of history. India existed long before the British came. They enslaved, and looted India. And to say that existence of India is their legacy is slap in the face of thousands who died in search of freedom and an Identity and to not be a slave. Would you go around saying the Nazis put Jews on the world map? If not, then don't say the same about India and the British. The British were an occupying force and their biggest achievement in India is that they didn't kill the natives like they did in Australia or America. And they didn't do that because it was more profiting to put enslave the local population than to kill it.

Source on Babur's Description of India: https://www.dawn.com/news/591800/time-check-medieval-india-b...

> everyone took whatever they could from everyone else

But the whole point is that Great Britain extracted and enslaved from their colonies, and not the other way around?

Great Britain was also responsible for ending the slave trade. Slavery was a constant in human society for millennia, but it was the British that outlawed it and spent 60 years and many lives enforcing its ban throughout much of the world.

https://www.history.co.uk/article/the-blockade-of-africa-how...

Great Britain literally enslaved innumerable colonies. Global activism pressured them to declare their own slavery illegal, though they could’ve also just listened to the people they enslaved. And you say that the slaves should be praising their slavers for deciding to stop slaving them? Amazing.

They couldn't have given two-hoots for "global activism". It was the most powerful empire in the world and it made considerable money from slavery. They were pressured into it by British people, many of whom had moral objections to slavery. They didn't just "stop slaving people". They forced much of the world to "stop slaving people" too.

Furthermore, they didn't "enslave colonies". They established colonies. They conquered nations and territories. And they shipped slaves, a minority of whom were captured by British slavers, but most of whom they bought from Arab and African slavers.

By that logic, an alternative history where Hitler committed Jewish genocide and then stopped in the middle of it and decided not to, would also be praiseworthy?

I don’t know where your argument is going, other than that hey they stopped doing this bad thing. My original comment was about how colonies got nothing in return from the colonizer. You chose to state a tangential point, that the slavers stopped slaving.

No, because Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust. What you are doing is equivalent to condemning Germany, the nation, including the people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust and fought against it.

Some people in the British Empire took part in the slave trade, and those people should be condemned. Some other people didn't. They fought against it and when they were in power they stopped it and expended considerable resources stopping others from doing it. Those people are praiseworthy, even though they were part of the British Empire.

No, I think oddly you’re the one making that argument.

I’m saying Nazis+Hitler should be condemned, never mentioned Germany. Similarly, I said Great Britain, both the monarchy and their colonial companies and the government resulting, which is what the article talks about as well. Never mentioned the citizens that fought back shouldn’t be acknowledged.

But it wasn’t just ordinary citizens who fought slavery. It was Members of Parliament and the aristocracy. It was Prime Ministers and military leaders. The Royal Navy lost 5000 men fighting slavers. Their West Africa Squadron captured over a thousand slaver ships and freed hundreds of thousands of slaves. They spent a significant portion of Britain’s national income fighting slavery every year for 6 decades. No country in modern history has spent as much on a purely moral venture that was against its national self interest.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2601305?seq=1

Your replies are a classic case of “moving goalposts”, which only aim to further the notion that Britain must be praised for their anti-slavery efforts. Simultaneously downplaying slavery and modern colonialism, you are pursuing this argument without acknowledging the concept that the enslaved see the world differently than their /glorious/ enslavers. Anyways, since you fail to address the original discussion, I’ll end this thread as it will gain me nothing.

> Furthermore, they didn't "enslave colonies". They established colonies.

They established two kind of colonies - one which exploited man power and natural resources, and the other was territorial and treated as a natural extension of their own kingdom (after they conquered and replaced the orginal habitants with their own citizens). All the Asian and African colonies fall into the former category where as all the "white mans land" - Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA - falls into the latter category. (I know some Americans would debate that they were in the exploitive category too, but as an indian I'd disagree).

You are probably being downvoted by the proclaimed nationalists of my country, but what you say is quite true - modern India came into existence on 15th August 1947, when we got our independence from the British. After the Mughal empire's 200-300 year rule weakened in India, it disintegrated into many kingdoms that kept fighting each other (as has always happened in our history). This is why the imperialist-capitalist East India Company could easily conquer these kingdoms. (They weren't alone - the french and the portuguese too vied with them, but British ended up with the major pie in hand).

Today, we can certainly draw upon the culture and history of all these various kingdoms and take pride in our multicultural society and the rich history it provides. But to go beyond that is just egoistical, and like you rightly said, will leave you stuck in the past rather than giving important to your present state and the future you desire.

Typical misinformation

Columbus was looking for a route to "India", there was the East India company.

Moreover, the British left India as 600+ kingdoms. It was the Indian who rebuilt the nation.

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